2019/2020 Washington Future City Competition Update

With an exciting new theme (hint it might be a little watery) and more resources than ever to help you succeed, it's gearing up to be the biggest and best year of Future City yet.

Sign up now for the comprehensive STEAM program that builds your student's 21st-century skills—problem solving, project management, and teamwork—all within an environment that fosters authentic thinking and a growth mindset.

Future City Gives Kids the Chance to...

Research real-world problems

Design innovative solutions

Engage in student-led learning

Strengthen their teamwork skills

Reminder – It’s great to come to regionals, but teams can also just complete a few deliverables and do Future City indecently on their own time-line. By registering all the resources are available to you.

Here are the latest updates from Future City HQ and the Washington Region

SimCity Codes

SimCity codes will again be distributed via CMS.

After July 15th, automatic delivery upon completion of your Program Details Survey in CMS. Your codes will appear in the educator page and remain there for the rest of the season.

You can request 1 or 2 codes.

Reminder that you can reuse SimCity codes from last year. You will need the code, the password and the email/username that was originally used for the Origin account.

For this year, SimCity will remain the central component of the Virtual City deliverable. However, this will be the last year it will be required. There are a few promising leads for the future that Future City HQ is working on now. Future City HQ won’t be publicly announcing this update about next season’s change until the Fall, but we are able to share this information with you now.

Rules Update

A recurring question/issue has been the number of words used in the essay, when they are not automatically counted with the work-count function. To fix this, rule 25 will now read:

The City Essay maximum word count is 1,500 words. Initial tabulation is done by the “word count” tool within the word processing software. The final word count does not include the title and reference list, but does include captions of graphics and illustrations. Words that appear within a graphic/illustration/table will be included in the word count. A maximum of four graphics/illustrations are allowed. A 10-point penalty will apply if word count exceeds 1,500.

Future City always wants to foster and environment of ingenuity and creativity, so this year there is an exciting adjustment to the rules on the model design. Previously, all pullouts and hinged extensions were required to fit within the original size parameters of the model. This year, that will no longer be a requirement. The updated rule 30 will now read:

The city model in its basic state must fit to be no larger than 25” (W) X 50” (L) X 20” (H). During the presentation, it is permissible to have extended parts, such as access doors, compartments, and hinged pullouts, as long as they are fully self-supported by the model, or- if removable – held by a presenter. Failure to comply with the city model dimensions will result in 15-point penalty.

There will be some new language that strengthen/clarifies the authority of the Regional Coordinator. This doesn’t involve substantive changes, but explicitly describes expectation of proper behavior by a team and their supporters.

New this year will be a PDF of the Rules page – making is easier to be shared with your teams.

Project Board form Engineering.com

This was also discussed last year to help teams share ideas and develop projects.